Jillian slips into the third opening. Again she finds a 20' wide corridor leading south into the hill. This one is 65' deep. Brilliant colors are everywhere; pigments painted on stone are undimmed by the passage of decades. The floor is a colorful mosaic, featuring a distinct, winding path of red tiles forming a 2-foot-wide, meandering trail south down the corridor. A few chips and gaps reveal that cement or plaster covers the underlying stonework of the corridor, and it mostly provides a smooth surface for the many illustrated scenes. The images depict fields with cattle grazing, a copse with several wolves in the background, slaves—human, orc, elven, and strange human/animal mixtures of pig-human, ape-human, and dog-human—going about various tasks.
Certain frescoes are more focused and show rooms of some building—a library filled with many books and scrolls, a torture chamber, and a wizard’s work room. Chairs, windows, boxes, bales, doors, chests, birds, bats, spiders, and all manner of things appear on the walls.
Jillian is certain the corridor is filled with traps. There are several pits traps scattered along the corridor. There are other interesting features at the far end of the chamber, but first Jillian will need to bypass the pits. There are curious things in the frescoes and they might need more investigation as well.
[sblock=Anyone entering the corridor and making a DC20 spot check]You see that the floor mosaic hides barely noticeable runes: a message in
Common. It says the following:
ACERERAK CONGRATULATES YOU ON YOUR POWERS OF OBSERVATION. SO MAKE OF THIS WHATEVER YOU WISH, FOR YOU WILL BE MINE IN THE END NO MATTER WHAT!
Go back to the tormentor or through the arch, and the second great hall you’ll discover. Shun green if you can, but night’s good color is for those of great valor. If shades of red stand for blood the wise will not need sacrifice aught but a loop of magical metal—you’re well along your march. Two pits along the way will be found to lead to a fortuitous fall, so check the wall.
These keys and those are most important of all, and beware of trembling hands and what will maul. If you find the false you find the true and into the columned hall you’ll come, and there the throne that’s key and keyed. The iron men of visage grim do more than meets the viewer’s eye. You’ve left and left and found my Tomb and now your soul will die. [/sblock]
